West Virginia To Allow Mobile Phone Voting For Midterm Elections

West Virginia will become the first state to allow residents to use their mobile phones to cast federal election ballots in the upcoming midterm elections. There’s a catch, though. This will only be limited to West Virginians that are serving overseas. They will be the first residents in the country to cast federal election ballots through a smartphone app. This has been done to make participation easier for troops stationed abroad.

Some have expressed concerns that the process of voting by smartphones could compromise the integrity of the election if there are attempts to hack the voting infrastructure during the midterm elections.

West Virginia Secretary of State Mac Warner and Voatz, the Boston-based company which developed the app, are confident that the system is secure. Those who will use this app to vote will first have to register by taking a photo of their government-issued identification in addition to a selfie-style video of their face which will be uploaded through the app.

The facial recognition software used by Voatz will make sure that the photo and video are of the same person. Once their registration is approved, the person will be able to cast their ballot using the Voatz app. This isn’t meant to replace traditional balloting and troops will be able to cast paper ballots instead if they so prefer.

The ballots will be anonymized and recorded on a public digital ledger that’s commonly known as the blockchain. Mobile voting will be limited to troops serving abroad but state officials will be leaving the final decision on using this app in November to each county.